My favorite Frank Black-loving art-rapper, LA's Open Mike Eagle, is back with Dark Comedy—his debut album on Mello Music Group, available on iTunes or Bandcamp. Perhaps indie rap's greatest Black hope, OME has delivered his strongest work on this, his fourth album. As naturally, effortlessly funny as the guy is, Comedy is hardly just jokes; as he tells us on track one, he's "on that laugh to keep from crying tip"—and MMG's one-sheet tells me that the album is "mostly about the failure of Karl Marx's Proletariat Revolution". Bet.

Let's talk about the nada this positive shit gets me/ hmmm, this is my emotional ape face/ I'm president of the rappers that don't condone date rape.

OME has a rather tough row to hoe, his lane seemingly that of the Last Mohican—the most prominent of a rare tribe: the truly self-aware 'positive' rapper. Halfway between fatigued, smirky optimism and melancholy resignation, Mike piles on sardonic lines, pop-culture detritus, and puts it all in his Top Ramen; dozing in front of Dobie Gillis on Nick At Nite, he dreams of an impossibly great show offer on "Jon Lovitz (Fantasy Booking Yarn)". His subtle vocal technique is hardly boring, but does have a distinctly warm, lulling effect: sometimes wordy and conversational, sometimes sparsely sung, his offhand library-hushed sibilance evoking Instant Vintage-era Steve Spacek.

My body's full of information!

One of the best parts about OME's music is that it's absolutely riddled with easter eggs for the listener, and Comedy is no different—a breeze through will net you wait-did-he-just references to: House of Cards, Gangstarr lyrics, the less-than-epic early 90's comic crossover Deathmate, comic Steven Wright, Michel'le, and even They Might Be Giants, of all things, on the hilariously pitiful "Sadface Penance Raps": no one in the world ever gets what they wants, and that is beautiful. Also, OME gets Hannibal Burress to drop a rap verse on "Doug Stamper", which is way better than a XXL Freshman nomination. OME makes clear that he doesn't exist in that clown-ass continuum, but rather the one that we all inhabit, the one that watches it on YouTube and WorldStar, laughing in disbelief—before switching channels, and noting that "there's mad shooters on the news, unless it's in the Chi/ cuz blacks and mexicans can die". He doesn't squeeze invisible triggers at his imaginary haters, he dreams of fucking up the Koch Brothers and watches "bad movies cuz that's what (he) deserve(s)." Open Mike Eagle is us, and better than that—he is our champion, observer of absurdity, trapped in a world he never made.